


PSA: What is a gem?

by everybodyknowsme



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: PSA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:40:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23533198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybodyknowsme/pseuds/everybodyknowsme
Summary: After the events of "Change your mind" Dr. Maheswaran thinks the public should be made aware of earth's new residents.And maybe get some research started.
Kudos: 34





	PSA: What is a gem?

A PSA by Dr. Maheshwaran

If you live close to Beach City, or anywhere from Beach City to Empire City, you might encounter “Gems”. If you are either a fan of the blog “Keep Beach City weird” or much more likely the punk band “Sadie Killer and the suspects” you have likely seen pictures of gems.  
A gem is a humanoid alien. They are mostly of similar size and shape as an adult human, but they can be smaller than one meter all the way to taller than 30 meters. In exceptional cases there have been cases documented of gems having twelve limbs and more are explicitly possible.  
Due to recent development the gem population of earth is bound to increase drastically from six individuals to several thousands. It is naive to expect all of these newcomers to stick to Beach City, where the residents are used to their presence. To prevent misunderstanding you should take your time to understand what and who these gems are.

A gem is a space faring life-form that projects a body from, well a gemstone that is situated on the surface of the body. Since their body is a projection, they do not need most things, that are essential to most biological life: breathing, eating, hydrating as well as sleeping are all optional for gems. Interestingly gems do experience mental and physical exhaustion and need rest when performing strenuous tasks for extended periods of time.  
As for eating and drinking: since gems do not need to, most have never tried it. Those that have, have mixed opinions about the experience, since their body does appear capable of digestion. Be sure to ask, when meeting a new gem.  
If a gem has never eaten, you should point out, that the food will leave their body at some point and explain the purpose of toilets.  
The effects of alcohol and drugs are unknown.

Much more important for casual interaction is however their social background, starting with their history with earth: the gems first came to earth several thousand years ago under the command of Pink Diamond, one of their four matriarchs, to colonize the planet. Once there a gem that went by Rose Quartz started opposing the colonization, since the colony would essentially destroy earth and kill all life on the planet.  
A significant turning point in this rebellion was the alleged murder of Pink Diamond at the hands of Rose Quartz. The retaliation of the other diamonds came in form of an attack, that was meant to kill all gems on earth, but instead caused all but five gems to become corrupted.  
It came out, that Rose Quartz was an alias created by Pink Diamond. It was thanks to this knowledge, that peace with the gem homeworld could be established. The gem homeworld is highly utilitarian, to the point that not functioning as intended was an offense punishable by death. Some of these so called “off-colors” are now living on earth as refugees.  
An important part of the peace with homeworld was the reversal of the corruption. While this returned the affected to sentience it did leave marks. You may notice dots, that break their color-scheme or horns and spikes. Since gems do not mature but instead literally burst fully formed from the earth, literally, and only seem to develop through trauma, mental health is a very novel concept to gems. So you may observe these gems exhibit symptoms of PTSD.  
Since the majority of gems on earth were intended to be soldiers, you should be careful if the topic of the “gem-war” comes up. If you are asked, remind them, that the average human life-span doesn't surpass a hundred years and thus while you are obviously in favor protecting earth from alien terraforming, you are to young to have first hand knowledge on the subject.

The gems, that had been living on earth are doing their best to introduce other gems to human society, but as mentioned we are talking about five teachers facing thousands of students. This means you have to expect gems to not understand many societal norms or laws. If you own a shop make sure to mention paying and money up front.

This about covers the commonly important part of this video.  
-  
What follows are pretty much my lose notes on gems: As mentioned before gems come into being fully formed. They are created by implanting the gemstone into suitable rock or stone, where it incubates for some time and then the adult gem-person erupts from the stone. They already possess all knowledge they need, to function within their intended role: language, what their role is and the basics of how to do it. This means that many gems have a hard time learning new things, especially when they are unrelated to their intended purpose. This is odd, because otherwise gems have intelligence on a similar level as humans.  
Another question that comes up from their method of reproduction is their origin. Understandably the gems, that started a civil war, to prevent the use of earth to produce gems, don't like to talk about the details of gem-production. How this process could occur naturally is thus not assessable. That gems don't appear to have any form of religion aside of the devotion to the diamonds of homeworld-gems makes speculation about their origin basically impossible. It is suggested, that the diamonds were the first gems, but I did not dare asking where they came from.

Another strange thing about the gems are their superhuman abilities: While their strength and their shapeshifting can easily be explained by the fact, that their bodies are hard-light construct, many possess secondary abilities, that are much harder to explain.  
Firstly there are certain abilities, that are unique to some kinds of gems. Lapis Lazuli can control water, Peridots can move metal objects and Saphires are said to possess future vision.  
All of that pales in comparison to the diamonds. Their body liquids can give live. There is a well documented case of a deceased human being brought back to life by Pink Diamond.

Much more important is the ability that all gems share: Fusion. Two gems can chose to become a single entity. While the acceptable use was restricted to gems of the same type it would result in “Me, but bigger”, it is also possible for all gems to fuse and the resulting entity is “more than the sum of its parts”.  
Usually this technique is initiated by a dance, requires all participants to be mentally in sync and is both physically and mentally draining to maintain to the point the participants sometimes find themselves unable to move, when they unfuse. However squads of rubies can fuse at a moments notice and gems, who are sufficiently intimate can remain fused for thousands of years at a time without any noticeable averse effects.  
When gems, that are not of the same kind, fuse, the result is unpredictable. A ruby and a sapphire become a garnet, even though a garnet is chemically speaking unrelated to either gemstone. A garnet is about 1.8 meters tall but if she fuses with an amethyst, which are on average is 1.9 meters tall, the result is a sugillate which is close to 20 meters tall.

Then there is the case of Steven: Steven is a half-human half-gem hybrid. How he came to be is unknown. His gem is that of his mother and he has the same abilities in addition to some due to his body not being made of hard-light. He is immune to most anti-gem weaponry. He can fuse with humans. He does have the disadvantages, that come with an organic body: he needs food, sleep, water and air. He can potentially die from injuries to his body. It remains to see, whether he can reproduce sexually, or will have to use the same process as his mother did, because he can so easily fuse with humans, he likes, that he found out that he could completely by accident.


End file.
